To Kill A God
by ThatOneSelfInsertGuy
Summary: The second book of the Planewalkers trilogy. I am sent to the world of Aincrad , where I am going to help Akihiko Kayaba in the greatest game of death ever. But not by choice. A SAO SI story.


Chapter 1: A Whole New World

 _Disclaimer: I do not own Aincrad, Sword Art Online, or the character Erin. I do own myself and all of the OC's I am probably bound to introduce._

 **AN: Hello, and welcome to the Second book of the Planewalker trilogy. If you have not read the first book, and like the video game Fire Emblem Awakening, go to my stories and read Realm of The New God. If you have not played the game, and or are too lazy to read an entirely new story before this one, I will summarize the events of the first book here:**

 **I arrive in the world of Fire Emblem Awakening, and begin to do stuff that you probably don't care about since it has a lot to do with the game. My evil Doppleganger Jean tries to kill me a couple times, one of those times resulting in me amputating my own arm. I split off from the main group, forming a special forces of sorts separate from the original. Finally, we reach the final battle where everyone except for me and a girl named Erin are killed. We are "rewarded" for our tenacity by being made Planeswalkers. Our new job that our title entails is running across the multiverse doing whatever the hell the gods say. In return, they give us special abilities, turn back the clock on our ages every time we change worlds, and if we serve long enough, we have the chance of becoming gods ourselves. The problem? Our first job as Planeswalkers is to help Akihiko Kayaba, the God of the Sword Art Online universe, kill hundreds of players. All this, so that he dies at Kirito's hand. He is an immortal who wants to die. We are unwilling to help at first, but then he threatens our universe of Ylisse with destruction, specifically my once lover Olivia. We then realized that we had no choice but to comply with the tyrannical god's demands. So we entered the world of Aincrad, desperate for any way out.**

 **So let me begin the first chapter of this.**

Planewalker.

A word synonymous with power, skill, virtual immortality, eternal youth, and interdimensional travel like some sort of time lord.

A word also synonymous with servitude, eternal torment, fear, and pain making every single moment of your life being too tragic to be enjoyed.

I must help Akihiko Kayaba, the God of this realm die at the hands of Kazuto, or Kirito. Whichever you prefer. In order to do this, I must make sure that a large number of innocent souls die in the largest game of death ever. Sword Art Online. They must die in a specific order in order for the death of the suicidal immortal to be full and permanent. If I refuse or fail, they will kill all of my remaining family. Why is this story so permeated with death and depression?

Why is life?

I examined my body once or twice over to be sure that I was truly whole. Two eyes, one nose, two legs, and two arms... Two arms?

This caused me to jump to my feet in shock. All the wounds and scars I had from my other adventures in the world of Ylisse had completely disappeared from my body. Even my left arm that I lost while saving my wife... Or is it ex-wife now that the Gods have separated us for an eternity? It doesn't matter right now. What matters is that I have new body parts that I thought were gone for good.

I stretched my left arm into the air, and felt the muscles in my shoulder tense. A bubble of laughter appeared in my throat, and I released it. It was the manic, desperate laugh of a man with nothing left to lose but his sanity. They told me that I was not going to be able to grow an arm back... Oh thank you for once you merciless, inconsistent Gods. I can do so many things now! Like... Pull up my pants and eat a sandwich at the same time. Or use a sword and a shield at the same time. Maybe even two swords if I get the ability, and I am feeling gutsy enough to withstand all of the fanboy rage. Speaking of, what sort of equipment do I have? What else changed?

I looked down at my clothes to see a grey shirt over black pants. I was slightly thinner than normal, which was odd in itself, but also I had no scars running up and down my arms from the slashes I got from swords in Ylisse that got too close to killing me for comfort.

"Kayaba said that I would be restored to the way I was upon the day I signed the contract." I considered my voice momentarily. It was deeper than it was a second ago even. I reached for my head, and instead of feeling a thick tangle that reached for the sky like a christian during worship, I felt something I had never experienced before in my life with myself. Bangs. I plucked one of my hairs out, and winced with the realization that pain was in fact very real in SAO. I gazed upon a chestnut lock, rather than the dirty blond briar patch that I normally had. The overall impression that my hair normally gave when grown out past an inch was "Super Saiyan after rolling around in a dust patch." This new hair was a vast improvement. In fact, I almost looked normal.

"He said that I would be restored, but it seems like I have been enhanced…" I flexed my newly restored left arm. "I don't think that Erin would even recognize me…" That was when a shock wave ran through me. Erin. She came with me to this world. Did she appear somewhere else? I better get moving if I wanted to find her.

I rose, and reached to my side where a blade usually sat, and grasped nothing but air. It was then I felt the weight of a sword on my back. I drew it out, and nearly dropped it from the almost exaggerated bad balance of the blade. I gave it a few test swings, and nearly cut my own arm off again before I had any time to enjoy it. I was going to need better equipment soon. This armor was barely better than regular street clothes.

"One thing at a time." I reminded myself aloud. "You have to find Erin before you can think of anything else." I suppose I was grasping at straws for what to do first, and finding my estranged comrade seemed like a good first step.

It wasn't until I began to walk that I took in my surroundings. The engine on this game was like nothing I had ever seen before. The graphics were so good, it was almost as if they were real. I noticed that if I wasn't focusing on anything in particular, that detail was toned back. The grass ended up being a flat surface of green rather than seeming like any sort of plant life. If I decided that I wanted to focus on an individual blade of grass however, the true extent of the sheer power of the engine was shown. You could see individual strands within the greater blade of grass. The fact that it could hold individual appearances for each and every blade of grass along with every NPC and Player character was simply astounding to say the least. Mind boggling was more of a correct way of putting it. I am not sure if it was the processor was lacking the capability of showing all of that detail, or if it was my mind that was incapable of processing so much at once.

A cry from my right woke me from my reverie. When a boar came charging at me, I just sighed and drew my sword. I swung the badly balanced blade in a lazy arc, and it phased through the beast. My eyes widened as a tusk entered my right side, and red polygons spiraled off my body, and the hot pain from being suddenly impaled lanced through me. What the fuck happened? I struck at the beast like I was trained to in Ylisse, so why did it do no damage at all? That is when I remembered watching sword art online before any of this happened. They move their sword into a certain position, and then the engine guides them through sword skills right? I moved my body perpendicular to the monster, and pointed my blade at it. It then began exuding a sickly green aura that quickly encompassed the entire blade. I let the system take over, and it shot out a quick jab. When that didn't kill it, my instinct took over and it led me into a horizontal slash that phased through the boar again. Oh. Joy. It took advantage, and soon a bar in the top left corner of my vision was flashing red. How pathetic am I? First battle and I am already getting my ass kicked. And then I realized that my instincts were going to be working against me. So I took my sword into a two handed grip, and slouched slowly, making myself a smaller target. The boar charged, and I quickly sprung out of the way to let the pig crash into the tree. A pair of stars appeared next to his life bar, which I can only assume meant that he was stunned. I drew my blade so that the flat part touched my cheek. It then began to glow a rosy pink. I lanced forward with a three part jab, making the beast dissolve into a series of square lights. I can only assume what all of that meant for now. I was going to need to take a look at all of this later.

The march through the woods was relatively uneventful after that. Once you got used to the fact that you had to sit there and let the system take over to attack, it was a piece of cake to murder little boars like the first all day. Of course I had to ignore every instinct screaming at me to lash out at the brutish swine. Before long, after my tenth boar kill in fact, there was a sudden burst of fanfare as a level up screen popped in front of my face.

The leveling system was a lot like Skyrim if you have played it. If you used a skill over and over, it would increase a number accessing new combos and abilities. The level up notification was more a measure for total HP, Stamina, and regeneration rate. Apparently, according to my broadsword skill, there was a new combo that I had unlocked. I didn't understand all of the game mumbo jumbo on the subject. I assume I would have to invest in a guidebook when I got the chance.

The sound of fighting in a clearing ahead stopped my progress. I turned into it, and what should I see but another player surrounded by goblins. She was wisplike and graceful, her brown hair cascading onto well shaped shoulders. Her blue eyes seemed subdued, almost as if by some trauma or death. I knew that look. Many people had it in Ylisse. I think many would have it here too before long. She seemed familiar, but not quite right.

"Stupid goblins...Just die already!" She continued slashing in the improper way and losing health. I drew my sword and got into a stance.

"Hey." I moved in next to her, parrying some of the goblins strikes. That was largely the same thankfully. "You are doing it wrong."

"No." The brand of sarcasm seemed familiar.

"You gotta get into a stance until the sword glows." I watched my sword glow orange, and let it guide me to slash through a goblin. Just swinging your sword around would just phase through."

"Utter BS. It was so much easier before...Just had to beat the idiots with a sword and then they die." Well she had to have had prior experience with blades as well if she was complaining. She gave a long suffering sigh. "So like this?" She held her blade in two hands out in front of her, and it glowed a burnt orange color. The resulting slash decapitated two goblins. "What's the point, though?"

"Some people never learned to fight with swords." I killed a goblin, and my instincts carried me into another ineffective strike. An axe in my side made red polygons fly through the air like confetti.

"Right. Forgot about that little detail." She looked so familiar, yet I couldn't place her looks to people I had seen before.

"What is your name?"

"Erin. You?" I almost laughed out loud. I decided I would poke a little fun at my estranged comrade.

"Noah." I tried to keep my inner laughter at the fact she didn't recognize me out of my voice. "I Had a friend named Erin once. She decided it would be a good idea to buy this game." What should I tell people? Certainly not that I was a slave to the gods. That would be a one way ticket to a mental hospital. "She was a pushy girl, and she Talked me into it.

"Hah, funny. I knew an idiot named Noah as well..." Wait Idiot? I am very smart thank you! Just don't have much time to think on the battlefield. "Always was doing something stupid or reckless." I remember having this conversation with Olivia. Who knew I would look back on our last argument with nostalgia? "But I guess that was fine, since by some divine miracle, it always worked out..." Maybe she is going with the MMORPG backstory too.

"It is all in the coding."

"Nah, I don't think that was the case...It wasn't some game." That IDIOT! If you don't know someone, you probably shouldn't tell them that you are from this dimension. Do you want to be put in the loony bin Erin?

"Yo-" A flashing red sign that popped right in the middle of my vision interrupted my possible chastisement. It red GM Announcement in big white block letters that spoke to the heartlessness of what was to come. A black hole opened up underneath me, and I realized that this was going to probably suck.

"Dafuq?" I questioned the rushing air around me as I looked to Erin. She was pissed more than surprised at this new development.

"I swear...if this turns into some bad, messed up Japanese manga..." With that, we landed in the middle of an arena with every single other player in SAO crammed inside with us. All 10,000 of them. The dark cloaked figure rose above us all in a whirlwind that blew up all our styled hair. A steady monotone voice fell from the billowing, empty cloak.

"Attention players:

I welcome you to my world. My name is Akihiko Kayaba. And as of this moment, I am in control of this world." I rolled my eyes at the proclamation of dominance rather than letting it strike fear into me. I already knew this guy was a god. My boss. What petty proclamation of power could possibly change that? Instead I whispered at Erin through the cacophony of muttering in Japanese.

"Oh boy, god complex." I looked back at the other players. "Why do you think they are all speaking Japanese?" Erin gave me a sidelong glance that said on no uncertain terms that I was in fact an idiot.

"We are in a Japanese VRMMORPG." She turned back to the empty cloak waiting for what it would say next. "I was surprised to find a fellow American here." She rolled her eyes once more and cracked her neck. "Or, English speaker. I'm assuming America; you just have that look." The cloak continued it's monologue before I could reply.

"I'm sure most of you have already noticed an item missing from your main menus - the logout button. Let me assure you, this is not a defect in the game. I repeat, this is not a defect. This is how 'Sword Art Online' was designed to be." I then said something that described this situation for a normal human perfectly:

"Well fuck."

"Told you." Erin grimaced from my left. "Bad Japanese manga." The monotone overpowered the sudden uproar of screams and exclamations in a gibberish we alone could not understand.

"You cannot log yourselves out of SAO, and no one from the outside will be able to shut down or remove the "NerveGear" from your head. If anyone attempts to do so, a transmitter inside the NerveGear will discharge a microwave signal into your skull, destroying your brain and ending your life." A boy to my right suddenly disappeared in a shower of light blue polygons. "Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have attempted removing the NerveGear, an unfortunate decision, to say the least." The uproar had died to a sad, defeated murmur. "As a result, the game now has two hundred thirteen less players than when it 've been deleted from both Aincrad and the real world." The sudden silence hit us like a ton of bricks.

"...What kind of person...?" I looked to Erin.

"Sort of like...Walhart..." And there is the reference. Everyone's favorite conqueror with a God complex from Valm. I just let the comment sit on the empty air until Kayaba decided once more to speak. He brought up headlines in several different languages with anchor coverage of the event.

"As you can see, international media outlets have round-the-clock coverage of everything, including the deaths. At this point, it's safe to assume the likelihood of a NerveGear being removed is minimal at best. I hope this brings you a little comfort as you try to clear the game." The shock of everything had put a muffler on the once loud crowd. The cloak spoke again:

"It's important to remember the following: There is no longer any way to revive someone within the game."

"Wow. Intense shit." I joked to the statue of composure to my left. "Wonder how I will get off this adrenaline high game?"

"Probably by dying." Wow. What a Debbie Downer.

"You have no faith whatsoever."

"Negativity is my positivity." I rolled my eyes at her.

"And the pessimists all die early."

"If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system... forever." The apparition began flapping in a nonexistent wind. "And the NerveGear will simultaneously destroy your brain. There is only one way for a player to escape now - you must clear the game. Right now, you're gathered on Floor One, the lowest level of Aincrad. If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss, you may advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game." I hoped to get Debbie downer over here out of her funk, so I decided to bring another joke.

"Hey look! I found another bad manga trope. Does that give me bingo? Nope." I forgot which trope this was.. Shit. "Don't have possibly impossible goal on my card." She just gave me a blank stare.

"You're a weird one, that's for sure."

"Last but not least, I've placed a little present in the item storage of every player.

Please have a look." I swiped down on my inventory, and scrolled down to the new item.

"A mi-" I clicked on it without thinking, and suddenly remembered what happened here. They reverted back to their real life app- "oh no."

A sudden flash of white light engulfed me, and when I looked down, I was broad shouldered once more. And beyond my left shoulder was an elbow, then nothing. The arm that had been so useful in the two hours I had been here was gone. I touched my hair, and felt the short bristles underneath my fingers knowing that if I looked in a mirror, I would see that it was the color of dirty dishwater. Erin's change wasn't so drastic. The only thing that changed about her was a couple of facial features, and her eyes went back to a rich chocolate color. They scanned my changes with a detached disinterest.

"Huh. You appear to be missing a few limbs" Suddenly recognition flashed across her face. "-You?" I just grinned and rolled my eyes at her ignorance.

"Hey Erin. Wondered what was with the blue eyed routine was. Must feel pretty self assured to change so little of yourself." She just kept her stare level without changing expression or tone.

"Well, of course I am…" She calmly stated through the clamor. "The blue eyed thing you'd understand if yours were compared to the Hudson River…" Akihiko Kayaba's cloak avatar began to speak once more over the din of shouting japanese people.

"Right now, you are probably wondering why. Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and NerveGear, do this? Ultimately, my goal was a simple one. The reason I created Sword Art Online was to control the fate of a world of my design." I scoffed at this proclamation of brutish power.

"You said it was to die earlier. Make up your mind."

"Just let the crazy man talk." A hesitant hand was placed on my shoulder. "It doesn't really matter until the end."

"It does matter." I reminded her. "That is our boss."

"As you can see, I have achieved my goal. This marks the end of the tutorial and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players, I wish you the best of luck." With that the cloak disappeared, and the arena we were in was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Then all at once, some nine thousand odd people began panicking all at once. I felt myself being battered back and forth like some sort of ball in a demented game of ping pong. I scanned the edge of the crowd for everyone's favorite protagonist. It was then I remembered the girl to my right would be all too willing to help me.

"Look for Kirito. He knows the spawn points for shit right now, so we should probably raise our levels with him for a while."

"Oh he is right there along with Klien." She pointed at the pair of retreating forms. We ran after them with the speed only given to those in a desperate situation. "I think there may be one issue."

"What could that possibly be besides us being trapped in the world's largest death game, and being slaves to the insane god ruling over it?" She just let out a long sigh through her nose telling me she did not appreciate my attempts at levity.

"Language barrier. Also I think he may be bothered if we stalk him…"

"We follow at a safe distance. Hopefully he won't notice." She gave a mockingly jaunty salute.

"Aye, ninja." And with that, we followed behind the intrepid hero of our story. I would say that we were the heros, but that would be one of the biggest lies I could ever tell and I make it a policy to tell you only the truth.

About two hours later, we had lost Kirito. So what we were doing was sitting on a rock, drinking some form of fizzy water that a horde of slimes had dropped. Was it sanitary? That is debateable, but it tasted clean. Erin wiped her mouth, and threw her empty tankard against a tree. It disappeared in a flash of blue polygons.

"So looking forward to maxing speed and strength." If she had read the light novels, she would know that was impossible. "What other skills do we have anyway?"

"Name one." I took a long draw from the water, letting the carbonation tickle the back of my throat. "It is probably there."

"Um…" She scrolled through the skill list, scrolling through the alphabetical list of skills. "Pickpocket? Really? You can commit crime here?"

"Don't you remember the PKers that were being talked ab-"

"I just thought the crimes you could commit only extended to murder." She interrupted me.

"Should we call it a day?" I shook my head as an immediate response to that.

"Right now it is max or die."

"Right, right." She came upon an ability that was gift wrapped with a bow in her inventory. "I got a special ability present from Kayaba. Pierce… Apparently it ignores the damage resistance of opponents." I looked over her shoulder as she scrolled through the details. Apparently it was an ability that she could activate for thirty seconds, and then it had a cooldown timer. I sat back down on the rock, and noticed that I had a gift wrapped ability too. There was a note attached that read:

"Dear Noah,

I am sorry that you had to be parted from your arm so soon. I regretfully cannot heal self inflicted wounds." Well maybe I should have just let Erin amputate it later instead of doing the job on the battlefield in retrospect. "To make up for it, I have enclosed an extra special ability that only heroes can receive.

Kayaba"

I tapped the package once more, and it unwrapped itself. The ability read: dual wielding. I remember the sense of elation I felt when I read that. I always liked the idea of swinging two swords at once around a battlefield. Two swords at- Oh no.

I looked down at my stub of a left arm with disdain. This thing caused all of my problems. The catalyst of this feeling of mortifying horror was not my own doing. It was Kayaba. I held my head in my hand and muttered:

"Kayaba... You certainly have a sick sense of humor."

 **AN: I am going to try to update at least once every week, but I am going to be busy with various things in real life that may occupy my time. Please note that once I get past these things, I will most likely be updating at a much more rapid pace than once a week. Maybe every other day.**

 **Also note that the main characters of Sword Art Online will be playing minor roles at best in this fanfiction. I don't think that a fanfiction could survive with two wish fulfillment Characters playing prominent roles. (THAT WAS A JOKE, DON'T LYNCH ME!)**

 **Also, a final note, constructive criticism is encouraged, but trolling is not. If you have nothing to say to help me improve my writing, please do everyone a favor and keep your opinions to yourself. And honestly, if you are one of those people who goes on SI fanfiction just to say shit about SI fanfiction, why are you even still here?**

 **All that being said, I hope you follow, favorite, and review! I really appreciate it!**


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